Provincial autonomy: perception and reality

Dictionary meaning of autonomy is the power or right of self-government, especially partial self-government; the doctrine that the human will carries its guiding principle within itself. The dictionary meaning of provincial autonomy lies at the heart of fulfilment of democratic aspirations of the people.
Autonomy implies democracy. It postulates a defined area of freedom of action in the provincial affairs by the people of that province through their democratic elected representatives. Constitution sets the limits to the powers that the provinces can exercise.
If democracy is absent, and the constitution only a piece of paper that could be disregarded at convenience of a dictator, then the whole debate regarding autonomy becomes sterile.
Parts-IV, V, & VI of the Constitution deal with the question of autonomy. Part-IV of the Constitution spread over 3 chapters defines the powers of the provinces including the Governors', the Provincial Assemblies' and the Provencal Governments'. Part-V of the Constitution relates to the Distribution of Legislative Powers.
This part again has 3 chapters, one each relating to Distribution of Legislative Powers, Administrative Relations Between Federation And Provinces and Special Provisions. Part-VI of the Constitution deals with Finance, Property, Contracts and Suits.
This part has again 3 chapters, one relating to Finance, the other to Borrowing And Audit and the last to Property, Contracts, Liabilities and Suits.
Fourth Schedule of the Constitution contains Federal Legislative List and Concurrent Legislative List. Parliament, that is the National Assembly shall have exclusive power to make laws with respect to any matter in the Federal Legislature and a Provincial Assembly also, shall have power to make laws with respect to any matter in the Concurrent Legislative List.
A Provincial Assembly and the Parliament shall not have powers to make laws with respect to any matter not enumerated in either the Federal Legislative List or the Concurrent Legislative List.
Article 143 of the Constitution lays down that "if any provision of an act of a provincial assembly is repugnant to any provision of an act of parliament which is competent to enact on any provision of any existing law with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the Concurrent Legislative List, then the Act of the Parliament whether passed before or after the Act of the Provincial Assembly or, as the case may be, the existing law, shall prevail and the Act of the Provincial Assembly shall, to the extent of the repugnancy, be void."
This is a provision that gives the Federal Government a distinct overriding preference over the provinces.
Among other things included in the Federal Legislative List are Taxes on the Sales and Purchases of Goods imported, exported, produced, manufactured or consumed, Railways, Mineral Oil and Natural Gas and Development of Industries.
The Provincial Government has no power to impose taxes because all of them including octroi have been usurped by the Federal Government, virtually everything, leaving nothing to the provinces. Even this autonomy is denied to the provinces.
In actual practice it is the Federal Government that calls the shots. The Federal Government has reduced the Provincial Government to the status of a municipality. The Federal Government appoints the Provincial Chief Secretaries and the I.Gs Police. The Provincial Government even if duly elected, which most of the time it is not, is bound to concede lots of space to these civil servants who represent the eyes and ears of the Federal Government.
Law and order is a provincial subject but this too is subject to complete federal control. The Federal Government selects the senior Police Officers as part of the national cadre known as Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) and appoints officers of the rank of ASPs and above thereby neutralising the provincial governments autonomy in the matter of law and order.
The provincial government can only recruit ASIs and promote SIs. Provincial police officers once promoted beyond certain level become part of the PSP and therefore subject to complete control of the Federal Government over their postings and promotions.
Besides the Police there are paramilitary forces entrusted with the policing job. They are Frontier Constabulary, Rangers, Coast Guards, Maritime Authority and a host of others. They are all answerable to the Federal Government and funded mostly through the Interior Division but they answer to the orders of the GHQ, not the popularly elected government.
Balochistan for instance is policed almost entirely by 35,000 troops of the FC. They show scant regard even for the Chief Justice of the High Court and subjected one to the indignity of car search. The provincial government is limited in its authority to less then 5 percent of the provincial territory including the town of Quetta.
The existence of Ministries of Local Governments Health, Education, Culture, Sports And Youth Affairs, Food, Agriculture, Livestock, Labour And Manpower Population Welfare Social Welfare And Special Education are some of the subjects which properly belong to the provincial governments but the existence of these ministries at the federal level is a blatant denial of the principle of autonomy and takes away whatever provincial autonomy the constitution grants in these important areas.
An election to the local councils, which has all along been the provincial subject, has been taken over by the present federal government in the name of devolution. The last election organised by the Chief Election Commissioner saw so much mess that one has never seen before.
The financial powers of the provincial governments are non-existent. There has been no award by the National Finance Commission for the last 5 years. The provincial government starts preparing the budget not knowing what their share in the national resources would be.
They have as a result run into huge deficit, which they finance, from borrowing with the permission of the federal government. The federal government borrows cheap from around the world and lends to the provinces at much higher rates. It refuses to concede the demand of the provincial governments to borrow in the market.
Council Of Common Interests, the mainstay of federalism, which is responsible to the parliament, according to the constitution has to formulate and regulate policies in relations to matters in Part-II of the Federal Legislative List and shall exercise supervision and control over related institutions.
The decision of the Council shall be expressed in terms of the opinion of the majority. It will make its own rules or procedure. This important organ of the Federation, which should regulate the relations between the federal, and the provincial governments, has not been in existence for the last six years. But who cares?
All mega projects are conceived, conceptualised and executed by the federal government with only a proforma consultation with the provincial governments. One such instance is that of Thul Canal which was hurriedly approved with token approval of the provincial governments. As a matter of fact it had been started almost a year before its approval by ECNEC.
Similarly Kalabagh has somehow caught the fancy of the federal government as the panacea for all our future problems. The fact that all three provincial assemblies except Punjab have passed resolutions against it has made no impression on the federal government.
Annual development programme is allocated not on the basis of felt needs of the people but the perceived priorities of the rulers of the federal government. Huge chunk of resources of the people are thus wasted in projects of dubious economic value to the people at large.
US, Canada and even the UAE owe their progress and prosperity to a sound federal system which allows the provinces a great deal of autonomy. Canada went as far as to allow its French speaking province to vote in a referendum on whether it would like to stay within the federation. It decided to stay on with only a hair breath margin.
Existence of institutions like parliament does not guarantee democracy. It requires something more than democracy to devolve power to the people. It is a state of mind. When the rulers are reluctant to give the people a say and funnily demand their rights in foreign lands whether in Afghanistan or Kashmir, they give rise to justified cynicism.
In our Parliament the Leader Of The Opposition is not the choice of the opposition but has been appointed by the government, almost a year after this controversial Parliament came into being. The Speaker does not normally allow any discussion to take place on matters of national interests if there is even the slightest hint of embarrassment to the federal government.
The National Assembly has become a joke. It has decided that if it meets for 3 days in a week that will be taken to be a full week of work. The press is free but there are areas, which it dare not expose.
Whether it is the 6 points programme of Awami League of the former East Pakistan or slogan of confederation by POONAM, they symbolise poor state of affairs with regard to the relationship between the federal and the provincial governments. The provincial governments will not run away if they are given space.
Autonomy means power to the people. It means real devolution of powers. The power exercised by the true representatives of the people. In Sindh and Balochistan the provincial governments are handmaidens of the federal government.
Contrary to the practice adopted in all three provinces, the largest single party in the Sindh Provincial Assembly was not allowed to form the government and an artificial majority was engineered.
The district government is a splendid idea but has been put in place with a motive to earn legitimacy for the military government. The federal government has taken the powers devolved to the district government from the provincial governments. Federal government has not let any power of its own slip from its hands. So where do we go from here?
Unless we show sincerity in sharing power with the people we may not be long in landing in a situation, which may be worse than we witnessed in 1971. There will be crescendo of demands from the extremist fringes of the political spectrum if we continue to marginalize the main political parties, PPP and PML (N).